Impairment charges are something fairly new in accounting with balance sheets and Investopedia says this:

"Impairment charge" is the new term for writing off worthless goodwill. These charges started making headlines in 2002 as companies adopted new accounting rules and disclosed huge goodwill write-offs (for example, AOL - $54 billion, SBC - $1.8 billion, and McDonald's - $99 million). While impairment charges have since then gone relatively unnoticed, they will get more attention as the weak economy and faltering stock market force more goodwill charge-offs and increase concerns about corporate balance sheets. This article will define the impairment charge and look at its good, bad and ugly effects.

The goodwill charge is normally related to a company paying a higher value to buy another firm, based on their branding, public image, business, etc. The company had a couple of acquisitions since 2010 and it could or could not relate to the purchase price paid for either one of them. Here’s a couple back links on the two acquisitions I posted. BD

(RTTNews.com) - Quality Systems Inc. ( QSII ) reported a fourth-quarter net loss of $4.09 million or $0.07 per share, compared to profit of $15.07 million or $0.25 per share last year. The company noted that it recorded a goodwill impairment charge to income of $17.4 million for the fiscal 2013 fourth quarter. Proforma net income for the quarter was $12.29 million or $0.21 per share.

On average, 19 analysts polled by Thomson Reuters expected the company to report profit per share of $0.28 for the quarter. Analysts' estimates typically exclude special items.

Quality Systems announced that its Board declared a quarterly cash dividend of $0.175 per share on its outstanding shares of common stock, payable to shareholders of record as of June 14, 2013 with an anticipated distribution date of July 5, 2013.

Dark Arts of Mathemical Deception

Professor Charlie Siefe of NYU, a mathematician debunks clinical trials, and few other items to where data is spun and fools you, every day example, hear about the perfect butt algorithm and more. These are probably some things you have never thought about but again after listening to what he has to say, it’s time to think about being skeptical. Here’s a radio show that also talks about the same topics.

This video digs in a bit further with how fictitious business models are used by banks and companies do this too. The models are so complex that CEOs don’t even understand them. “Quants, The Alchemists of Wall Street will take you through how “math models” work at banks and financial institutions in a way that even the layman can understand. More videos like over at theAlgo Duping/Killer Algorithm Page. Bank of America will also tell you“IT’ is a business” how they make money.

Weapons of Math Destruction

This is a lecture where Kathy O’Neill, a former Quant who worked for a Hedge Fund (Weapons of Math Destruction) on Wall Street will tell you what is done with your retirement money and more. The banks and companies use technology to take advantage because they can. “Of course we are going to take advantage because our tools are our brains…if they could figure out a way to take advantage of pension funds they would, a good interview with explaining smart money and dumb money.

Algorithms Shape The World

This is a very good presentation done a TED Conference and really was the one that got everyone started thinking about algorithms and today it’s talked about a lot. As he says “if you’re an algorithm, life is looking pretty good, but can’t say the same for humans”. What is a black box? Nobody has any control over the flash crash. We have moved forward a bit but still we are writing the unreadable and lost the sense of some of what is happening. Nice plug for Nanex here with research.